Thorpe's replacement

[Rik]

He just bores me to tears anyway, I know which spinner I would spend all day watching...and one which actually spins the ball a decent way! Giles will never be great though, he just doesn't spin it enough to be threatening.

 

[Anil]

Is it mandatory that England should take a spinner? The wickets down under can hardly be expected to give spinners any real help except perhaps Sydney. If there was a quality spinner available, that would have been a different story. Isn't it better to have an all-pace attack in Australia?

 

[Neil Pickup]

I don't think that there's much harm in taking a couple, you never know what the pitches might do. And also, I'd rather take Giles/Dawson than Tudor..

It's not Giles' fault that he's told to bowl outside leg.

 

[Rik]

Having an all pace attack doesn't really help as all the batsmen will face is pace and there will be no variation which a spinner brings into an attack. Anyway ok if Giles is made to bowl outside leg and take barely any wickets why does he continue to do the same in county games with the same lack of success?

 

[Anil]

Hayden and the Waughs play well against even quality spin. Ponting, Martyn, Langer & Gilchrist who struggle against good spinners should tackle Giles/Dawson without much problems. Hussain is probably planning to use the sixth stump strategy against the whole Aussie team for stemming the flow of runs and frustrating the batsmen. The chances of success seem very, very slight.

[Edited on 10/3/2002 by anilramavarma]

 

[marc71178]

Originally posted by Rik
Having an all pace attack doesn't really help as all the batsmen will face is pace and there will be no variation which a spinner brings into an attack. Anyway ok if Giles is made to bowl outside leg and take barely any wickets why does he continue to do the same in county games with the same lack of success?

He doesn't - he has a decent average in FCC overall.

 

[Rik]

Giles used to bowl at the stumps and he had a good average for a spinner, now hes started bowling outside leg in county and test matches and gets none! Oh and he used to be able to bat...

 

[marc71178]

Well at Test Level, his batting is much improved this season, so you cannot level that criticism at him.

 

[marc71178]

Originally posted by Rik
Giles used to bowl at the stumps and he had a good average for a spinner, now hes started bowling outside leg in county and test matches and gets none! Oh and he used to be able to bat...

25 wickets in 4 CC games - terrible record.

 

[Rik]

He used to take them without going for 100+ though :P He has improved this season but for Warwickshire he bats at 6 or 7 and scores hundreds, this season his highest test score is 42, his highest 1st class score this season...strangely

 

[Rik]

is 68 but his batting does seem to have lost some of its class this year

Batting

All FC
M I N/O Runs H/S Average
9 12 0 264 68 22.00

County Championship
M I N/O Runs H/S Average
4 6 0 134 68 22.33

Bowling

All FC
Overs M Runs W Av BB
419.1 67 1222 36 33.94 7-142

County Championship
Overs M Runs W Av BB
215.4 33 678 25 27.12 7-142

His Bowling Average in 4 games for Warwickshire was 27 yet in his 5 games for England he took 11 wickets for 554 runs at an average of 49.45. His overall test average now stands at 39 which is also Dawson's FC average, oh what a strong spin attack England have!

 

[aussie_beater]

I thought Ramprakash had an average of over 40 against the Aussies.... Is this Key guy better ?

 

[Rik]

Yeah thats mainly from not outs...Ramps is an amazing county player but not really a test match player. Its difficult to say weather Key will make it but I don't know if he has the technique ability to make it like Tresco, he doesn't seem to play with the same ease. Also England seem to be picking loads of players who used to have poor records like Vaughn who was picked after averaging 28 for that season, Tresco who had a career average of about 28 maybe more, Key who used to average 26, Afzaal and Shah and Blackwell. It seems to be that the players who don't start well but then have a few good seasons tend to do the buisness while players with impressive career averages like Ramprakash and Hick tend to be failures! Odd.

 

[luckyeddie]

Rik - it's all about making the step up to the big arena.

Form is temporary, class is permanent. The trouble is telling the two apart.

It's true that Ramprakash and Hick have had exceptional careers in the county championship yet both have been relative failures in test cricket.

At one time, the selectors used to discard players too early.

Gooch springs to mind - a couple of tests against Australia in 1975 then 3 years in the wilderness before he managed to force his way back in.

Before him, Dennis Amiss was another one. It took him about 10 tests to really find his feet and he went on to be more than adequate.

In recent years, the selectors have had an amazing amount of faith in certain players, yet this faith has hardly been rewarded.

Hick wasn't really discarded until he'd been a fixture in the side for 6 years, yet in that time he consistently flattered to deceive (true pace was his undoing).

Ramprakash clearly tried the patience of the selectors a little more than Hick, being ditched for the first time after just a couple of series. Understandable, since his average was about that of a decent tail-ender (and after 52 tests wasn't any better - any decent bowling was his undoing, so it must have been down to temperament in his case).

It may be that selectors are reluctant to chuck relative failures out now without giving them a fair crack of the whip, so it's good to see that Key is firmly in their thoughts (not that he can be considered a relative failure).

Play him at 5.